Monday, November 27, 2017
Uniting the Ummah and inspiring towards Islam through love of the Ahlul Bayt(as)
Hannah Smith reflects upon her trip to the latest global unity and Islamic awakening conference in Tehran
At the end of November, I had the great privilege to attend the latest conference organised by the World Assembly of Islamic Awakening (WAIA) in Tehran, Iran. The conference, titled ‘Lovers of the Ahlul Bayt(as) and Takfirism Issue’ brought together 600 Muslims, both Sunni and Shi‘a from over 100 countries. I was part of a small British delegation. The conference was a follow-up to ten global conferences held in Tehran by the WAIA in 2011 on the theme of Islamic Awakening. This was my second trip to Iran and the visit was just as inspiring as the first time I visited for the Women’s Islamic Awakening conference in 2011.
Despite having visited Iran six years ago, I was still slightly anxious before my trip because this time I was travelling alone and being a white British convert I was confronted with a number of somewhat quizzical reactions to my choice of travel destination by native non-Muslim colleagues and family! However as soon as I set foot in Iran and I was greeted by the warm hospitality of my hosts including a VIP reception in the Imam Khomeini airport, I knew that I had made the right decision.
At the hotel, I soon became acquainted with the theme of the conference, love of the Ahlul Bayt (as), as I caught up with old friends and became acquainted with new ones, our nascent congeniality lit by the light of the Ahlul Bayt(as) burning in our hearts. As a convert to Islam coming from a Muslim-minority country and a lover of the Ahlul Bayt(as), I was surprised to find myself met with such warmth by Muslims from all over the world and it is from this that I began to re-discover the power of the Ahlul Bayt(as) – the most important theme of the conference! It got me thinking if this huge warmth and love between those who love the Prophet’s family was an effort by us mere mortals to show the respect we hold for others who also share our love of the most sublime beautiful human archetypes?
After a day of relaxation, the conference proceedings began in the prestigious conference venue. Here the delegation of 600 Muslims including leading scholars, politicians and activists were welcomed by the organiser of the conference, former Minister of Foreign Affairs, Dr Ali Akbar Velayati. Dr Velayati gave a beautiful speech introducing the conceptual bases of the conference: creating unity between Sunni and Shi‘a through mutual love of the Ahlul Bayt(as), and countering the propaganda of deviant forms of Islam by spreading knowledge of the example of the Ahlul Bayt(as), a concept so simple it is hard to fathom how our respective communities across the world have failed to recognise this perfect antidote to ISIS! When the actions of ISIS are held up against the lives of the Ahlul Bayt(as) – who showed the utmost restraint and compassion at all times – no one can be in doubt about the legitimacy of ISIS barbarity. Even when defending themselves on the battlefield, with no choice but to fight or die the Prophet’s family continued to gently preach and invite their enemies to the beautiful path of Islam.
Perhaps it is the historical legacy of persecution of Shi’ite Muslims, who maintain the strongest link to the Ahlul Bayt(as), and their subsequent history of taqiyyah (dissimulation) and insularity, which has left the lovers of the Ahlul Bayt(as) so weak in propagating the story of the Ahlul Bayt (as). Wait, can we even call ourselves lovers if we do not strive in the utmost capacity of our being in this mission? Doesn’t loving a person entail having an affinity for their values and behaviours? In the case of the Ahlul Bayt(as), our duty towards them is thus to fulfil their desire that we continue to propagate their message and strive to emulate their perfect example. However, Dr Velayati’s speech did not just wake me up to the power of the Ahlul Bayt(as) in countering ISIS or uniting Sunni and Shi‘a sects but to the boundless appeal of the Ahlul Bayt for all humanity. I started contemplating why I and others love the Ahlul Bayt(as)? Again, I was surprised to feel myself become aware of such a simple concept, I think I had not been truly cognisant of how influential the speech and actions of the Prophet’s family have been in my own conversion. The exemplary example of the Ahlul Bayt(as) has probably been the most decisive factor in helping me to understand what it means to be a Muslim, how a Muslim should live in this world and perhaps most important of all for a convert, why a person should be a Muslim. The conference had woken me up to a new perspective on my own conversion and a potential avenue for attracting people to Islam, what I deem the “lovability” or “lovableness” of the Ahlul Bayt(as), the attraction to those qualities which the Ahlul Bayt(as) had in abundance like kindness, generosity, compassion, patience, humility, forbearance and self-sacrifice that are sure to melt the hardest of hearts. How could any human not love the Prophet’s family when they hear about stories like Lady Fatima(sa) giving away her wedding dress to a beggar because she had nothing else to give and because the Prophet (s) had taught her to give away the things that she loved? It feels like the Ahlul Bayt(as) are Islam’s hidden treasure, and we have forgotten their true value. As a community we are very good at remembering the sublime moral stand and self-sacrifice of Imam Husayn(a) and his family, and now in the UK we are beginning to show signs of spreading this story outwards through initiatives such as ‘Who is Husayn?’, but this is only tapping the beginning of the huge potential for bringing people into the fold of Islam through love of the Ahlul Bay (as).
The conference lasted two days in total, over which hundreds of presentations were delivered about the role of the Ahlul Bayt(as) and the issue of takfirism from a large number of analytical perspectives. The conference delegation was also blessed to receive a rousing speech from Imam Khamenei at his private house where he similarly echoed the lofty objectives of the conference. The conference programme ended with a VIP day trip to Mashhad, an opportunity for us to connect and pay homage collectively and privately with our beloved Imam Rida(a). All the pilgrims came back with a much-needed spiritual pick-me-up and a blessed sense of brotherhood and sisterhood, a fitting end to an inspiring trip.
Sunday, November 26, 2017
How the U.S. Aristocracy Made a Foreign-Policy Chump Out of Trump
by Eric Zuesse for the Saker blog
WHAT WILL BE SHOWN HERE
In order to understand Donald Trump’s foreign policies, a person must be totally open-minded to at least the possibility that the U.S. is the world’s most aggressive, war-mongering nation, so that when an international poll was taken of the publics in 65 nations in 2013 as to which country is “the greatest threat to peace in the world today”, the 67,806 respondents were correct to place the United States as being overwhelmingly in that position, “the greatest threat to peace in the world today” — far ahead of any other nation.
In other words: to understand Trump’s foreign policies, one must first recognize the reality of the broader background. There is, indeed, a very dark reality about the United States that is covered-up in virtually all ‘histories’ about this country except for the Oliver Stone and Peter Kuznick masterpiece, Untold History of the United States. (See Chapter One here, and Chapter Two here.) One must be willing to get beyond the myths about America’s benevolence and ‘support of democracy around the world’, in order to understand this President’s foreign policy. After all, any American President is part of a tradition — and it goes beyond partisanship: there are some important things (especially in foreign policy) that both the Democratic Party (“liberal”) Establishment and the Republican Party (“conservative”) Establishment share.
For example: the Democrat Barack Obama did terrible things to Libya and Syria, and the Republican George W. Bush did terrible things to Iraq and Afghanistan. (And, before Bush, Zbigniew Brzezinski and Jimmy Carter started the radicalization of Afghanistan in order to weaken the Soviet Union. And what did LBJ and Nixon do to Vietnam and Laos? And to Chile. And to Argentina? And what did Eisenhower do to Iran, and to Guatemala? It goes on, and on, after World War II and the leadership by America’s last great President, Franklin Delano Roosevelt.)
The reality about post-World-War-One America (except when FDR was President) is the opposite of the benevolent myth: it’s the nonstop control of this country by an increasingly voracious aristocracy, who destroy other nations and have utter disregard for those peoples’ welfare, and no real concern even for the American public (except as cannon-fodder for their conquests — and as taxpayers to pay for these foreign operations, too).
If the very possibility of this — of a voracious U.S. aristocracy — is peremptorily denied, then a truthful understanding of President Trump’s foreign polices will be impossible, and there would be no point in seeing the evidence that will be presented here, which is consistent with this broader history, and, according to which history, Trump is simply the latest incarnation of that deeper reality.
Specifically, the reality, I shall argue here, is as follows: The same people who were behind the George W. Bush regime’s 2003 invasion of Iraq, are behind Donald Trump’s planned regime-change-in-Iran policy. And this fact says a lot about Trump’s self-claims to having known in advance that Bush’s invasion of Iraq was based on lies. Trump’s claim there is a lie: he did not know in advance, about Bush’s lying, and he’s even being fooled now by the same people who sold invading Iraq; they’ve sold him, now, on a U.S. or Israeli or Saudi invasion of Iran; only the pretext for that invasion is lacking.
All of the Washington DC and NYC think-tanks are controlled by the U.S. aristocracy, who are united on a few things, of which above all is neoconservatism — an obsession to continue the Cold War against Russia even though the Soviet Union and its communism and its Warsaw Pact military alliance ended in 1991.
Their ultimate goal is conquering Russia — the world’s most resource-rich country. Psychopathic, crazy, but true: that’s the way they are. (It used to be called “imperialists” but now it’s called “neoconservatives.”)
Key to this aim, is regime-change in all countries whose leaders are friendly toward Russia (such as was the case with Saddam Hussein, and with Muammar Gaddafi, and with Bashar al-Assad, and with Viktor Yanukovych, and with Hassan Rouhani) — isolation of Russia, and then (unless another leader of Russia, such as Boris Yeltsin was, who is able to be controlled by the U.S. aristocracy, comes to power there) a blitz NATO invasion of Russia: World War III.
Defeating Russia’s ally Iran is now key to this broader plan — the aristocracy’s wedge to weaken Russia further, without directly attacking Russia itself, yet. Instead of (like Obama) going simultaneously after Russia and three heads-of-state who are friendly toward Russia — Libya’s Gaddafi, Ukraine’s Yanukovych, and Syria’s Assad — they’re settling, right now, merely on overthrowing just one specific Moscow-friendly leader: the leader of Iran (that’s currently Hassan Rouhani, but also even above him, the Shiite clergy who determine who can and can’t run in Iran’s elections). Mattis, Flynn (until he was fired), Bannon, Pompeo, and perhaps even Trump himself, favor this: conquest of Iran. But like with Obama’s Presidency, there might even be multiple targets soon: especially, the Trump team has also been belligerent against China (another traditional American target after China had been a U.S. ally during the world war against fascism. On which side is the U.S., now — for, or against, fascism? Why isn’t that question even being debated in America? It should be, if the answer to it might explain today’s “perpetual war” — which is so profitable for the owners of firms such as Lockheed Martin, and so disastrous for the rest of the world, including even the American public.)
THE CASE
Anyone who was watching television news shows during the buildup to the catastrophic U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003 remembers the many ‘experts’ who were speaking, and from whom the ‘news’media were publishing editorials, about how horrible Saddam Hussein was, and how much safer the American public would be if there were to be “regime change in Iraq.” Those propagandists never apologized, not even after the trillions of dollars and hundreds of thousands (if not millions) of dead and injured that resulted from their and George W. Bush’s and the rest of the U.S. Establishment’s invasion there had produced an utterly destroyed country in Iraq, and so much PTSD etc. here in America — all on the basis of Bush’s lies. The result for Iraqis was vastly worse than it was for Americans: As I headlined on 29 September 2015, “GALLUP: ‘Iraqis Are the Saddest & One of the Angriest Populations in the World’.” The people who should be feeling guilty about that are not the U.S. troops who did what they were told and had been throughly lied to, but instead are the U.S. aristocracy and their paid agents in the think-tanks and ‘news’ media and government, who fooled the public into supporting that horrendous invasion.
A good example of such paid agents (propagandists for such evils) are Michael O’Hanlon and Kenneth Pollack of the Brookings Institution, who shilled shamelessly for the Iraq invasion, and yet continued to be invited onto news shows etc., as ‘experts’, even after the general public came to realize that they’d been fooled into supporting the invasion (on the basis of those individuals’ lies and distortions). Why do people still watch those channels, and subscribe to those ‘news’papers and cable-‘news’ channels and magazines, etc.? But it seems that Trump himself does. And he’s also surrounded by people who are doing it, very assiduously.
Thus, on 13 January 2017, I headlined “Trump Team Targets Iran”, and I opened by stating the enigma, for which I then had no answer: “Saudi Arabia dominates above all other nations as a supplier of suicide bombers, and its royal family dominates as the world’s top financial backer of Al Qaeda and other jihadist groups, but incoming President Donald Trump has chosen to lead his national-security team, only people who blame Iran [which the Saudi royal family hate] and not Saudi Arabia [its government, the royal Saud family, who own the government], as being the main source of international terrorism.” But on 5 February 2017, the AP’s Jon Gambrell headlined, “Trump Cabinet pick paid by controversial Iranian exile group” and he provided some of the answer, numerous linkages between the entering Trump Administration and an anti-Iranian group of exiles from Iran, the MEK, Mujahedeen-e-Khalq, regarding which, wikipedia’s article opens:
The People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran or the Mojahedin-e Khalq … is an Iranian leftist political–militant [5] in exile that advocates a violent overthrow of the government of Iran while claiming itself as the replacing shadow government.[28][29] The group has no popular base of support inside Iran, but maintains a presence by acting as a proxy against Tehran.[30]
It is designated as a terrorist organization by Iran and Iraq, and was considered a terrorist organization by the United Kingdom and the European Union until 2008 and 2009 respectively, and by Canada and the United States until 2012. Various scholarly works, media outlets, and the governments of the United States and France have described it as a cult.[b] The organization has built a cult of personality around its leaders Massoud and Maryam Rajavi.[33]
Gambrell’s terrific article for the AP opened:
An official in U.S. President Donald Trump’s Cabinet and at least one of his advisers gave paid speeches to organizations linked to an Iranian exile group that killed Americans before the 1979 Islamic Revolution, ran donation scams and saw its members set themselves on fire over the arrest of their leader.
Elaine Chao [Mitch McConnell’s wife], confirmed this week as Trump’s transportation secretary, received $50,000 in 2015 for a five-minute speech to the political wing of the Mujahedeen-e-Khalq, previously called a “cult-like” terrorist group by the State Department. Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani also was paid an unknown sum to talk to the group, known as the MEK.
More than two dozen former U.S. officials, both Republican and Democratic, have spoken before the MEK, including former House Speaker and Trump adviser Newt Gingrich. Some have publicly acknowledged being paid, but others have not.
While nothing would have prohibited the paid speeches, they raise questions about what influence the exiles may have in the new administration.
Already, a group of former U.S. officials, including Giuliani, wrote a letter to Trump last month encouraging him to “establish a dialogue” with the MEK’s political arm. With Trump’s ban on Iranians entering the U.S., his administration’s call this week to put Iran “on notice” and the imposition of new sanctions on Friday, the exile group may find his administration more welcoming than any before.
This is somewhat reminiscent of the exile community from Ukraine (typical of which is Chrystia Freeland, who ardently favors crushing Russia), and the exile community from Syria (who likewise are rabidly anti-Russia, in addition to being anti-Assad) — and all other exile communities that the U.S. aristocracy’s CIA has nurtured, over decades, in order to weaken the leader of any country who is on favorable terms with the leader of Russia. (The CIA is expert at regime-change; they work all the angles.)
The MEK’s agenda is strongly supportive of the long-time U.S. Establishment’s program regarding Iran. For example, the Brookings Institution’s June 2009, 170-page, analysis, “Which Path to Persia?” in which both O’Hanlon and Pollack — along with four others of Brookings’s many rabid neoconservatives — described various strategies to conquer Iran.
Some of the paper’s sections were called, “Persuasion,” “Engagement,” “Military,” etc.; and, for example, “Military” is broken further down into “Invasion,” “Airstrikes,” and “Allowing or Encouraging an Israeli Military Strike.”
Part III was “Regime Change,” and included, “Supporting a Popular Uprising,” “Supporting Iranian Minority And Opposition Groups,” and “The Coup.”
Trump right now is not so much “Supporting Iranian Minority And Opposition Groups,” as he is: Supported by Iranian Minority and Opposition Groups — such as the Mujahedeen-e-Khalq.
The wikipedia article on the Mujahedeen e-Kalkh includes also the following relevant section:
Paid advocacy
MEK is known for its long-term lobbying effort, especially in the United States,[2] where it competes against the National Iranian American Council.[174] It spent heavily to remove itself from the list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations, having paid high-profile officials upwards of $50,000 for each appearance to give speeches calling for delisting.[174] DiGenova & Toensing and Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld are among the advocacy groups paid by the organization.[175] The actual sum paid is vague, but the total could be in the millions of dollars.[176][177]
According to investigative work by Scott Peterson and acknowledged by Scott Shane, Glenn Greenwald and Joby Warrick, some prominent US officials from both political parties have received substantial sums of cash to give speeches in favor of MEK, and have become vocal advocates for the group, specifically for removing them from the terrorist list. They include Democrats Howard Dean, Ed Rendell, Wesley Clark, Bill Richardson, and Lee Hamilton; and Republicans Elaine Chao, Rudy Giuliani, Fran Townsend, Tom Ridge, Michael Mukasey, and Andrew Card. There are also advocates outside the government, such as Alan Dershowitz and Elie Wiesel.[177][178][179][180]
How did those Mujahedeen (and do you remember that before Al Qaeda was called “Al Qaeda,” it was called the “Mujahedeen” in Afghanistan?) suddenly become so prominent and popular in America’s newsmedia, after having been, for so long, banned as terrorists? In order to understand that (and the aristocracy’s ongoing war against even their own country’s public), one has to understand how the aristocracy works, which is our subject here: it works by financing its agents (including not just the think tanks, but the newsmedia). That’s why it’s now called “the Permanent Government”: it’s agents for the ‘permanent’ aristocracy — which doesn’t change even when its individual members do (such as by births and deaths, and by changes in individual fortunes).
The Brookings report noted (in Chapter 7, “Inspiring an Insurgency”): “The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA ) could take care of most of the supplies and training for these groups, as it has for decades all over the world.” Was Mike Pompeo (Trump’s new CIA Director) listening? Apparently, he was even taking his instructions from them.
The Brookings analysis also said: “The United States should expect to provide an array of assistance to insurgents, depending on their military skill and their degree of popular support. The more competent and popular the insurgents are, the less they would need American aid.”
Gambrell’s article mentioned a RAND report (for which he unfortunately provided neither a name nor a link, nor even a date, but we’ll provide all that below), which included the following passage (from which Gambrell quoted only the last two sentences), which indicated that the MEK and other such proxy-groups would need lots of “American aid” — lots of funding from U.S. taxpayers — in order to stand any chance of ever succeeding:
Prior to establishing an alliance with Saddam, the MeK had been a popular organization. However, once it settled in Iraq and fought against Iranian forces in alliance with Saddam, the group incurred the ire of the Iranian people and, as a result, faced a shortfall in volunteers. Thus began a campaign of disingenuous recruiting. The MeK naturally sought out Iranian dissidents, but it also approached Iranian economic migrants in such countries as Turkey and the United Arab Emirates with false promises of employment, land, aid in applying for asylum in Western countries, and even marriage, to attract them to Iraq. Relatives of members were given free trips to visit the MeK’s camps. Most of these “recruits” were brought into Iraq illegally and then required to hand over their identity documents for “safekeeping.” Thus, they were effectively trapped.
That 2009 RAND report was titled “The Mujahedin-e Khalq in Iraq”, and it had been prepared specifically for the ‘Defense’ Department; so, presumably, Trump’s ‘Defense’ Secretary, Marine General James Mattis, and Trump’s National Security Advisor (until February 13th), Lt. Gen. Mike Flynn, both had read it. If they have also read the Brookings paper — which noted “and their degree of popular support. The more competent and popular the insurgents are, the less they would need American aid” — then they’d already have been duly warned that to rely upon such anti-Iran proxies as MEK (people such as Elaine Chou and Rudolf Giuliani and Newt Gingrich are being paid by), would be very dumb, because the more that those proxies (such as MEK) “would need American aid” (on account of those American proxies being increasingly despised by Iranians as their enemies). Proxies are supposed to be used in order to lower the costs — not to raise them. (And, the alternative to using proxies, which is to send in one’s own army, costs taxpayers lots of money, which can’t be kept off the books.) All that’s available to do this job is the proxies; so, the U.S. aristocracy hire them.
Apparently, Trump’s team are being swayed by Islamist Marxist enemies of the post-1979 Iranian regime, and of the pre-1979 Iranian regime, and of America, and who are hated as cheats and liars by many Muslims in countries throughout the world. Now, where would a group like that be getting its money, if not from the CIA and the other agencies of the U.S. aristocracy (and perhaps its allied aristocracies in Europe and the Middle East)? (And note, here, that, though this operation is serving the U.S. aristocracy, it’s being financed by U.S. taxpayers — the people who fund the CIA.)
But, if this is the way that the aristocracy can sucker one of its own dumbest members (Trump), to keeping up their long war, then perhaps the change from Obama to Trump has been merely a messier version of the same thing as before.
Is this the best that today’s America can come up with — dumber neocons?
Are we back, again, to George W. Bush, but just with a different face and name? Is Donald Trump merely a different Presidential cog, in the same old aristocratic machine? It does seem that way. And the deceived American public have overall a high regard for Bush, who destroyed Iraq, just as they have a very high regard for Obama, who destroyed Libya, Syria, and Ukraine.
Even if Donald Trump had been sincere about his intention to “drain the swamp” of the aristocracy and its agents, he’d be needing to outsmart them, and not merely to be just another one of their many suckers.
But where will Trump learn that he’s been fooled? Will he learn it in the New York Times? Will he learn it in the Washington Post? Will he learn it in Fox News? Will he learn it in Breitbart? Will he learn it in National Review? Will he learn it in Mother Jones? Will he learn it in TIME? They’re all (both the ones against him, as well as the ones for him) feeding his fantasies, the U.S. mainstream view, neoconservatism.
Where, among the ‘news’media he might follow, would he be apprised of realities such as you’ve seen documented here? He’s surrounded only by the aristocracy and its agents, who hide these realities.
—————
Investigative historian Eric Zuesse is the author, most recently, of They’re Not Even Close: The Democratic vs. Republican Economic Records, 1910-2010, and of CHRIST’S VENTRILOQUISTS: The Event that Created Christianity.
Monday, November 20, 2017
Saudi Arabia and Israel Know They Cannot Defeat Iran, Want to Drag the US into an Uncontainable War
BY PHILIP GIRALDI
There is considerable confusion about what is occurring in the Middle East, to include much discussion of whether Israel and Saudi Arabia have formally agreed to combine forces to increase both military and economic pressure on Iran, which both of them see as their principal rival in the region. During the past week, a classified message sent by the Israeli Foreign Ministry to all its diplomatic missions worldwide that appears to confirm that possibility was obtained and leaked by senior reporter Barak Ravid of Israel’s highly respected Channel 10 News.
The cable instructs Israeli diplomats to take coordinated steps designed to discredit the activities of the Iranian government. It states, in edited-for-brevity translation, that overseas missions should contact their host countries to emphasize that the resignation of Lebanese Prime Minister Saad al-Hariri over Iranian attempts to take over his country “illustrate once again the destructive nature of Iran and Hezbollah and their danger to the stability of Lebanon and the countries of the region;” that the argument that having Hezbollah in the Lebanese government provides stability is false and only serves to “promote the interests of a foreign power – Iran;” and that the launch of a ballistic missile from Yemen against Saudi Arabia confirms the need for “increased pressure on Iran and Hezbollah on a range of issues from the production of ballistic missiles to regional subversion."
The Foreign Ministry message has been interpreted as “proof” that Israel and Saudi Arabia are coordinating to provoke a war against Iran as Israel is taking positions in support of Saudi claims, to include those relating to the confused conflict taking place in Yemen. My own take is, however, somewhat different. Having seen literally hundreds of similar U.S. State Department messages, I would regard the Israeli cable as consisting of specific “talking points” for use with foreign governments. Though it is clear that Tel Aviv and Riyadh have been secretly communicating over the past two years regarding their perception of the Iranian threat, it would be an exaggeration to claim that they have a coordinated position or some kind of alliance since they differ on so many other issues. They do, however, have common interests that are in this case aligned regarding the Iranians since both Israel and Saudi Arabia aspire to dominance in their region and only Iran stands in their way.
Both Saudi Arabia and Israel know they cannot defeat Iran and its proxies without the active participation of the United States. That would require shaping the “threat” narrative to start with a series of relatively minor military actions that appear defensive or non-controversial to draw the United States in without really appearing to do so. American involvement would be against Washington’s own interests in the region but it would serve Saudi and Israeli objectives, particularly if the situation is inherently unstable and is allowed to escalate. Both the Saudis and, more particularly, the Israelis have powerful lobbies in Washington that will push a friendly Congress for increased U.S. involvement and the Iranophobic mainstream media is likely to be similarly positive in helping to shape the arguments for American engagement.
It seems clear that the escalation will be starting in Lebanon, where the resignation of Prime Minister al-Hariri has created a plausible instability that can be exploited by Israel supported by heavy pressure from the Saudis to harden the Lebanese government line against Hezbollah. Hariri headed a coalition pulled together in 2016 that included nearly all of Lebanon’s main parties, including Hezbollah. It took office in a political deal that made Michel Aoun, a Maronite Christian who has an understanding with Hezbollah, president. The inclusion of Hezbollah and the presence of a friendly Aoun was, at the time, seen as a victory for Iran.
By one account, Hariri has been more-or-less kidnapped by the Saudis because he was regarded as too accommodating to the Shi’ites in Lebanon and, if that is so, he was speaking from Riyadh’s script when he resigned while denouncing Iran and Hezbollah and claiming that he fled because he was about to be assassinated. It suggests that the Saudis and Israelis, who have been hyperbolically claiming that Tehran is about to take control of much of the Middle East, are feeling confident enough to move towards some kind of showdown with Iran. As a first step, expected deteriorating sectarian interaction between Sunni and Shi‘ite Muslims in Lebanon to eliminate any possibility of a bipartisan and functioning government will provide a pretext for staged intervention to “stabilize” the situation.
The United States has been largely silent but presumably privately approving the Israeli and Saudi moves, as Washington, Riyadh and Tel Aviv have all adamantly opposed the existence of the Lebanese coalition dominated by Aoun and Hezbollah’s Nasrullah. Israel fighter aircraft will likely increase incursions into Lebanese airspace in light of the alleged instability north of the border, which will provoke a Lebanese response escalating into an incident that will lead to a major attack to bring the Beirut government down, though Israel will have to be careful to avoid a possible mass counter-strike by Hezbollah missiles. The ultimate objective might be to create a Saudi and Israeli inspired grand alliance, which might be a fantasy, to pushback Iranian influence in the entire region. Lebanon’s Hezbollah, opposed by the Saudis because it is Shi’a and by Israel because of its missile arsenal would be conveniently targeted as the first marker to fall.
There is every sign that the White House will go along with Riyadh and Tel Aviv in their attempts to rollback Iranian influence, starting in Lebanon, given the recent failure to certify the nuclear agreement with Iran and the comments of Generals Mattis and McMaster suggesting that war with the Mullahs is likely. It would be a grave misjudgment to think that such a war, once started, will be containable, but it is a mistake that Washington repeats over and over again in places like Somalia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and Syria.
WRITER
PHILIP GIRALDI
Philip M. Giraldi is a former CIA counter-terrorism specialist and military intelligence officer who served nineteen years overseas in Turkey, Italy, Germany, and Spain. He was the CIA Chief of Base for the Barcelona Olympics in 1992 and was one of the first Americans to enter Afghanistan in December 2001. Phil is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, a Washington-based advocacy group that seeks to encourage and promote a U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East that is consistent with American values and interests.
Sunday, November 19, 2017
Fig Leaves Shamelessly Dropped
An article published recently in a daily in one of the so-called Third World countries, read mostly by local Muslims, went out of its way to laud the Saudi clan as ‘defenders of Islam’, and lamented what it called dangers to the ‘holy land of Saudi Arabia’ from the enemies of Islam, who want to disrupt the harmonious bonds between the rulers and the people who live in peace and prosperity, with gratitude for the king and the crown and prayers to God to preserve the monarchy.
It is obvious that the publishers of the newspaper are being handsomely paid by the minority Wahhabi regime in Riyadh to distort facts about its origin and policies by deceiving the unsuspecting readership, most of whom seem to be simple-minded Muslims unaware of international realities and the use of the Saudi clan as a Trojan Horse by its masters in the West to keep the Ummah divided and in perpetual thrall.
For any conscientious Muslim, this and similar articles published frequently in dailies and magazines in countries stretching from the Philippines to sub-Saharan Africa in order to fool the gullible and make them oblivious of the deep inroads the devilish Zionists are making in the heart of the Islamic world with the connivance of the Saudi clan, are nothing but part of intricate CIA-Mossad joint propaganda.
Irrespective of the fact that except for Mecca and Medina which are indeed the most sacred cities for Muslims and whose sanctities the Wahhabis have continued to desecrate since their bloody occupation of Hijaz in 1925, neither is Saudi Arabia (created by the British in 1932) a holy Islamic land nor does Islam condone kingship, crown, and hereditary succession, whether through consensus or palace coup.
Likewise, no true Muslim, whether Sunni or Shi’a, anywhere in the US-protected kingdom – Hijaz, Najran, the Empty Quarter, Eastern Province, Jawf, Northern region, Tabuk, and even Najd the home of the Saudi clan – prays for the king and crown.
As a matter of fact, the regime in Riyadh is th8e principal backer of terrorism and terrorist groups in almost all Muslim countries, as is evident by the inhuman and destabilizing activities of Daesh, al-Qaeda, Boko Haram, Taleban, Abu Sayyaf militants, etc.
At the same time, Saudi Arabia is one of the most authoritarian regimes in the world and brutally crushes the aspirations of such movements inside the country as Hizb ut-Tahrir, Party for Islamic Revival, Ummah Islamic Party, Islamic Revolutionary Organization of the Arabian Peninsula, Liberation Party of the Peninsula, Hezbollah al-Hijaz, and Muslim Brotherhood.
Thus, in order to distract attention from the simmering volcano at home which might burst any moment and sweep away the Saudi clan into oblivion, the Wahhabi regime meddles in regional countries and creates crises, such as in Qatar, Bahrain, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and last but not the least the brutal war in Yemen.
Now, with the blessings of its godfathers in Washington, the ruling regime is making the dangerous mistake of stoking tensions with the Islamic Republic, by openly allying itself with the illegal Zionist entity, as is evident by the airing of identical views by self-imposed Heir Apparent Mohammad bin Salman and Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu.
The fig leafs on either side were shamelessly dropped this week. If the Jewish looking foreign minister, Adel Jubeir, cries more hoarsely by calling Iran and the popular movements in the region as the greatest danger to Saudi interests, Israeli General Gadi Eisenkot agrees. In an interview with a Saudi website, the first ever by a Zionist, Eisenkot openly spoke of collaboration against the Islamic Republic.
Would this unholy alliance succeed in its sinister goals? The answer is a big No, and time will soon tell.
-Kayhan Int’l
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